Title: Mastering the Art of Literature Review: Your Guide to Methodology

Embarking on a literature review can be likened to navigating a vast ocean of information, where
every wave represents a study, theory, or analysis. It's a critical component of academic and research
endeavors, yet often proves to be a daunting task for many. To craft a comprehensive and insightful
literature review requires meticulous planning, extensive research, and a keen analytical eye.

Understanding the Methods of Conducting Literature Review:

1. Define Your Scope: Clearly outline the boundaries of your research. What specific topic or
question are you addressing? By defining your scope, you'll avoid drowning in a sea of
irrelevant information.
2. Search Strategy: Develop a systematic approach to gathering relevant literature. Utilize
databases, academic journals, books, and other reputable sources. Keyword searches,
Boolean operators, and citation tracking can streamline the process.
3. Critical Evaluation: Not all sources are created equal. Evaluate the credibility, relevance, and
methodology of each piece of literature. Consider the author's credentials, publication date,
and the rigor of their research methodology.
4. Synthesis and Analysis: As you review the literature, identify key themes, patterns, and gaps
in the existing research. Synthesize the findings to construct a coherent narrative that
highlights the evolution of ideas and debates within your field.
5. Organizational Structure: Structure your literature review in a logical and coherent manner.
Consider organizing by themes, chronological order, theoretical frameworks, or
methodological approaches.
6. Writing and Citation: Write with clarity and precision, synthesizing the literature into a
cohesive narrative while maintaining an objective tone. Ensure proper citation of sources
using a recognized citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

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We could, thus, tease out that the dominant epistemological position in that domain was not
positivist as in “mainstream accounting research” ( Chua, 1986; Hopwood, 2008; Merchant, 2010 )
but rather critical ( Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022 ). However, for your literature review, you need to
keep things focused. Issue Lab -- an online collection of free research, evaluations, case studies,
toolkits, etc. Only when we changed this argument and identified two opposing theoretical positions
as being dominant in our review sample and letting these guide the analysis of our results were the
reviewers more convinced and recommended minor revisions or acceptance right away.
Demonstrates your familiarity with existing knowledge in the field Directs readers to other literature
of interest. Nonetheless, thanks to many supportive editors and reviewers, I think that I have a better
understanding now than some years ago. Also, be sure to adhere to your style guidelines because
headings, title pages, references lists, and other sections or formatting features may differ. Since this
engagement with the existing literature lies at the heart of most literature reviews, I include their
findings when discussing the potential advantages of literature reviews. When reading a book or an
extended article you might notice that it is increasingly hard for you to concentrate. Structuring a
literature review Directing the argument and synthesising sources Being critical in your literature
review. The following should, thus, not be read as an exhaustive list of such challenges and potential
solutions but rather as a subjective list of those challenges specific to literature reviews of qualitative
accounting research, especially when trying to publish such reviews as standalone papers in well-
regarded accounting journals. A M AIN I SSUE FOR THE Q UALITATIVE R ESEARCHER
Qualitative research methods involve systematic collection, organizing, and interpretation of material
in textual form derived from talk or observations. How much time do you (and others) have to
dedicate. A wide search means that not all search results will be relevant. While Aguinis and Glavas
(2012) do not cite “evidence-based thinking” as their guiding paradigm, they also do not commit to
a particular theory a priori but rather incorporate research findings from different areas of
management to inductively develop a theoretical framework that can guide future research. The need
for consistency and coherence becomes more obvious when we consider the risk of something called
“method-slurring.” This is the problem of blurring distinctions between qualitative approaches. The
first use case is related to what Lukka and Vinnari (2014, p. 1309) term the “domain theory” of a
field within accounting research: “A domain theory refers to a particular set of knowledge on a
substantive topic area situated in a field or domain”. Changes in approach over time can be seen
after publication information has been compared, so be sure to place the authors within their own
historical context too. For instance, in the first two versions of a recently published review paper I
co-authored ( Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022 ), we tried to convince the reviewers that we followed
evidence-based thinking in the paper and would, thus, rather not use a predefined theoretical lens to
analyze our review sample. In fact, many literature reviews that have exclusively taken research items
from accounting journals ( Modell, 2022a, 2022b; Repenning et al., 2022 ) have drawn on more
general advances in the respective theory or topic from other fields. However, since I had a non-
tenured co-author on board in the above example ( Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022 ), to submit to the
conventions of the field, as I did not want my beliefs to get in the way of my co-author’s career
prospects. What role will the social sciences play in resolving these challenges. Modell (2022b)
reviews institutional research on management accounting and concludes that parts of this literature
show no progress and even some degenerative tendencies in continuing to draw on one-sided views
that predominantly focus on either human agency or structures to explain institutional processes
around management accounting. Fourth, analyze the patterns you noted by considering similarities
and differences between sources. Initially this table can start to be filled out when gathering
literature, and then further filled out when surveying and critiquing your literature. The main concern
of novice researchers is to find the reason and appropriate design to do the research and the proper
methodology to answer the question. For stand-alone historiographies, include an introduction, body
paragraphs, and a conclusion. A search strategy helps prevent that, by using punctuation and
keywords to make the database understand exactly what you want. For example, searching for
articles on the economic history of Australia, you can simply type in. A related problem I often
encounter when discussing literature reviews authored by junior scholars such as PhD students is that
they heavily focus on the rigor and systematicity of such reviews ( Hiebl, 2021; Simsek et al., 2021
). Such scholars sometimes concentrate on identifying a comprehensive list of research items and
providing extensive descriptive information on the items covered in their reviews ( Snyder, 2019 ).
The search terms within each block are combined with OR, then the blocks are combined with AND.
Hence, for the domain we covered, the argument put forward by more critically oriented accounting
scholars that many mainstream accounting scholars tend to ignore qualitative and critical research (
Ahrens et al., 2008 ) was flipped on its head. That is, if we consider a comprehensive review sample
as the cornerstone of systematic reviews ( Rojon et al., 2021; Simsek et al., 2021 ), reviews of
qualitative accounting research may be more relaxed in terms of systematicity than reviews covering
more quantitative research. Another reason that students land up with a poor structure is that they
start writing their literature chapter prematurely. Similar to use case (ii) reviews, these use case (iii)
reviews usually focus solely on the accounting literature and typically only include research
published in accounting journals in their review samples. If the researcher is confused in literature
work, the literature writing service will help in the perfect time. All too often, we encounter literature
reviews that, at first glance, look pretty good. Forming the research question is one of the initial
challenges that researchers encounter in the early stages of a research project. Such reviews may be
specifically helpful and impactful if researchers have seen relatively new methods or noticed
shortcomings or open questions with existing research methods applied in qualitative accounting
research. In this paper, I reanalyzed the empirical parts of published qualitative accounting research
articles with a so-far underused theoretical paradigm in mind (i.e. embedded agency). My argument
was that we could learn much from published case studies for the theory under focus, even if most
of the papers I analyzed originally featured a (slightly) different theoretical framing. A strategy or
blueprint that plans the action for carrying through the research data. Elements. In other words, your
study will attempt to contribute a missing puzzle piece (or get two pieces to fit together). Sometimes
there is an inconsistency between research question, research methodology, and basic philosophical
assumptions, and the researchers fail to justify their methods of choice in line with the research
question and the ontological and epidemiological assumptions. Therefore, this article contributes to
the discussion of challenges related to qualitative research in healthcare in the light of personal
experiences of a researcher conducting purely qualitative health research. Click on the number under
the heading Citing Articles, you’ll receive a list of these 73 publications. I acknowledge that several
further articles in the accounting literature include valuable advice for qualitatively oriented
researchers (e.g. Ahrens, 2022; Ahrens and Chapman, 2006; Bruesch and Quinn, 2022; Lillis and
Mundy, 2005; Grafton et al., 2011; Qu and Dumay, 2011 ). For this reason, Andiola et al. (2017)
highlight specific challenges when reviewing behavioral accounting research. Other options include:
Paid searching services ( InfoAction at the Vancouver Public Library, for example) Access you may
have as a member of a professional organization (eg. This structure can (and likely will) evolve as
you write, but you need some sort of outline as a starting point. Video: 1 min.45 sec. Concept Map
of Databases: Articles Located in Subject Index. Identifying the research problem and forming the
research question are some of the initial challenges that researchers encounter in the early stages of a
qualitative research project. Keeping track of sources: To keep track of the sources you intend to use,
you can keep a list in your own document, or you may want to consider using citation management
software. Together with the three potential advantages of literature reviews, the right-hand box of
Figure 1 includes the two main publication forms of reviews. To be able to report these details of the
literature search, authors of literature reviews are advised to establish a clear search strategy with
defined inclusion and exclusion criteria and document their search in detail. Compared with
quantitative research papers, which usually compress accounting and related phenomena into
variables that can be included in statistical analyses ( Messner et al., 2017 ), the findings sections of
qualitative accounting studies are often more extensive. Please review our comments policy if you
have any concerns on posting a comment below Image credit: Jaeyoung Geoffrey Kang via unsplash
About the author Neal Haddaway is a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment
Institute, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and
Climate Change, and a Research Associate at the Africa Centre for Evidence. Every field uses a
different style of literature review. Researchers ought to figure out about the planning of qualitative
research and how to choose the methodology. April 23, 2019 Tips For How to Edit a Scientific
Manuscript For Publication May 25, 2019.
I agree that my (optional) personal data (name, e-mail) is stored in accordance with the Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR). Qualitative research is cyclic, which means that the research question
in this approach immerses gradually into the topic. These strands and methodological traditions come
with their own peculiarities and informal rules of the game that are often inaccessible to junior
scholars ( Brennan, 2019; Dai et al., 2019; Humphrey and Lee, 2004; Malmi, 2010 ). In the
management literature, such inductive theory discovery reviews are often rooted in evidence-based
thinking, and they focus on analyzing empirical research items without a particular informing theory (
Leuz, 2018; Rousseau et al., 2008; Tranfield et al., 2003 ). Because such evidence-based reviews
focus on a phenomenon observed in organizational practice or a related question, they would mostly
apply to use case (i) reviews of a certain domain of accounting research. The essentially “diagnostic
and exploratory nature” of qualitative research is invaluable in developing conceptualizations in
health as an evolving discipline. In other words, where could the potential contributions of literature
reviews lie. Before beginning the process in its entirety, carefully plan and trial a critical appraisal
tool, learning from existing robust essential appraisal tools. That is, that you review the citations and
references for the included publications. At the same time, given the lack of systematically generated
advice in the literature, the challenges and potential solutions I discuss in this qualitative insights
piece rest on my own experience and are, thus, subjective. Of course, not all review articles need to
focus on mainstream versus minority research. On this page, we will review a few things worth
thinking about when you intend to conduct and report a systematic literature search. SURVEY
RESEARCH. Two approaches to collect primary data. 1. Observe ? conditions, behavior, events,
people, or processes 2. Adding a number after N will determine how many words you want to
“allow” between your two terms. By exaggerating the importance of findings, writers are seen to
undermine the impartiality of science, fuel skepticism and alienate readers. Consider how each
source approaches your topic in addition to their collective points of intersection and separation.
Most guidance on conducting literature reviews assumes an academic context, with strict guidelines
for how a review should be conducted. This was the question the authors set out to investigate. It is
not simply hiring more faculty, or putting the titles “decolonizing” and “Indigenizing” on anything
that might connect to Indigenous peoples. Despite potentially resting on an incomplete review
sample, I still managed to tease out novel contributions. The result of such a study will not be new
and interesting, and even the study process will be very mechanical without good interpretation or
enough exploration. The use of subjective or emotive words that glamorize, publicize, embellish or
exaggerate results and promote the merits of studies has been noted for some time and has drawn
criticism from researchers themselves. Leave a Comment Cancel reply Your email address will not be
published. A good research requires a good research question as well because it allows us to identify
what we really want to know. The question should be appropriate for the qualitative research and for
the specific approach you choose which must be grounded in research. How to Identify the Research
Gap While Writing a PhD Dissertation Literature. This first post is a general overview of the
literature review. Did you learn anything that's useful to your organization and its practices. It is not
simply hiring more faculty, or putting the titles “decolonizing” and “Indigenizing” on anything that
might connect to Indigenous peoples. A chronological compilation of studies The reason for
conducting a literature review is to: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students While
this 9-minute video from NCSU is geared toward graduate students, it is useful for anyone
conducting a literature review. Why conduct a literature review, stages of a literature review, lit
reviews: an overview (video), check out these books.
He specializes in qualitative and quantitative research designs and methods, multimethod research.
Outline. The research topic. Qualitative research is cyclic, which means that the research question in
this approach immerses gradually into the topic. The main concern of novice researchers is to find the
reason and appropriate design to do the research and the proper methodology to answer the question.
The other problem is the examination committee and the format of proposal in the grant sites and
funding agencies, which is based on the principles of quantitative study. That is a wonderful
privilege, but you need to get those questions right if you dig into people's lives and ask about their
real experiences. When the partials replicate or reproduce the same relationship that existed in
bivariate table prior to control Control has no effect. Nothing irrelevant. Assess the “goodness” of
measuring instrument. A good research requires a good research question as well because it allows us
to identify what we really want to know. The reason for the absence of landmark literature in poor
literature reviews is most commonly that either the student isn’t aware of the literature (because they
haven’t sufficiently immersed themselves in the existing research), or that they feel that they should
only present the most up to date studies. SLRs are a research method used to write an entire journal
article. Finally, it is literature review, general reading, and discussion with an expert supervisor that
can help you find the right topic. Communications of the Association of Information Systems, 37
(43), 879-910. It is a great website that is FULL of tips and tricks for writing, including a PhD
thesis-at-a-glance template and a checklist, helping you make sure you haven’t missed a thing.
RESEARCH DESIGN. Research Design. A master plan specifying the methods and procedures for
collecting and analyzing the data. Forming the research question is one of the initial challenges that
researchers encounter in the early stages of a research project. The reason is probably that reviewers
do not expect much theory guidance in methodologically oriented reviews, although we did present
some underlying theory in the mentioned methodological review paper, too ( Feldermann and Hiebl,
2020 ). The necessity of related literature search and review exercises in dissertati. Introduction The
theoretical field as a major and an essential component is also undergoing systematic changes,
development and improvement with investigates, writings, and publications in professional,
academic and scientific ways. Why does a CID Research Proposal require a literature search and
review. These use case (i) literature reviews may provide authors with the largest set of choices.
Feature subset. All features. Filter. Predictor. Multiple Feature subsets. Keeping the review sample
manageable in this way may also be achieved by limiting potentially relevant research items
according to their publication date. The l iterature review. 4. Adding new perspectives. 3. Filling in
gaps in the wall. 1. Present state of the literature. 2. Identifying cracks in the wall. Like other
literature reviews, historiographies can be embedded or stand-alone. The structure will help you to
clearly express your ideas and demonstrate how your sources are connected. For the first part see
Slaying the (literature review) beast: Part 1. Importantly, that puzzle will in all likelihood have pieces
that don’t fit well together, and pieces that are missing. This way you will have a list of references in
your email, and later you will be able to use them without wasting too much time. In addition, it
offers potential remedies to frequent challenges when conducting such reviews. In particular, I hope
the discussion of these challenges may contribute to increased awareness of the dominance of theory
refinement and, to a lesser extent, theory testing literature reviews of certain domains of accounting
research and encourage more estimation of evidence-based, and thus, theory discovery reviews.
Such reviews may, therefore, predominantly extract the necessary information from the methods
sections of the research items in the review sample ( Dai et al., 2019; Feldermann and Hiebl, 2020 ).
Since you search many databases, you will also likely end up with duplicate references. While
excellent books on conducting literature reviews in general have been written ( Booth et al., 2021;
Jesson et al., 2011 ), including some that emphasize the social sciences ( Petticrew and Roberts, 2012
), in this paper I tried to highlight several important choices that authors can make when crafting
literature reviews of qualitative accounting research. We should be aware of most common
difficulties that arise during the writing process of a literature review. The latter aspect, however, is a
defining feature of best practice methodological literature reviews, as framed by Aguinis et al.
(2023). For more details on systematic and traditional review approaches, see the excellent and
detailed guidance offered by Booth et al. (2021) and Jesson et al. (2011). For general advice on
conducting up-to-date literature reviews of business-related research topics, see the references
mentioned in the Introduction. It should, ideally, compare and contrast the “classics” with the more
up to date research, and briefly comment on the evolution. This rigid format pushes the researchers to
try to clarify everything in advance. Qualitative researchers have a natural curiosity that leads them
to study worlds that interest them and that they otherwise might not have access to. Screen the
results you're getting: are they relevant to the topic you've chosen. Explain why this has been the
case and how these approaches enhance or limit current understandings of the topic. By doing this,
you’ll achieve a comprehensive literature base that is both well-rooted in tried and tested theory and
current. Video: 1 min.45 sec. Concept Map of Databases: Articles Located in Subject Index.
HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (Cont.). Steps in a H-C Research Project. Be sure to
include some background information on the actual topic in the introduction. How to Identify the
Research Gap While Writing a PhD Dissertation Literature. Show all sections Hide all sections
Preparation Think through your needs, capacity, and resources to plan your work. However, since I
had a non-tenured co-author on board in the above example ( Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022 ), to
submit to the conventions of the field, as I did not want my beliefs to get in the way of my co-
author’s career prospects. You Might Also Like: Dear GradCoach, Thank you for making our uni
student lives better. Despite the growing interest in systematic reviews, traditional approaches to
reviewing the literature continue to persist in contemporary publications across disciplines. It means
that either you have to describe two modern works for each fundamental ones or reverse. While not
relying on a full analysis of all available use case (ii) reviews, this observation may imply that this
type of literature review rests on extended experience with a certain theory, and thus, having deep
insights into the strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings of its application in accounting research.
Zero in on the research that relates to your project. How much time do you (and others) have to
dedicate. Thank you to the Community Scholars and others who reviewed drafts of this page,
including Savannah Swann from the Dr. Peter Centre. From here, identify the purpose or thesis for
your topic. While Locke and Golden-Biddle (1997) analytically separate these three advantages of
scholarly engagement with the prior literature, it seems fair to assume that a literature review must
achieve at least one of these advantages and may pertain to several at the same time. Depending on
your area of study, recent may mean the last year or two, or a fair deal longer. The other problem is
the examination committee and the format of proposal of grant sites and funding agencies, which are
based on the principles of quantitative study. It offers insights into the practical difficulties
encountered when performing qualitative studies and offers solutions and alternatives applied by
these authors, which may be of use to others. Google search doesn't show relevant results Though
they say that everything can be found in Google, when it comes to literature review writing, it is not
particularly accurate.